Fascism in Germany

The Holocaust was the mass murder or genocide of Jewish people, homosexuals, gypsies, blacks, and other minority groups. When the Holocaust is brought up, the most common question I’ve heard is “how did the German people get away with this, and why did anyone support them?” By the time the holocaust took place, a precedent to anti-Semitism was already historically present. In the late 19th century and early 20th century there was a strong presence of social Darwinism and a eugenicist world view, which declared certain types of people to be biologically better than other inferior groups. After the great depression hit Germany, it led to the idea of euthanizing the mentally ill, or physically disabled to save costs across the country. This opened the idea of euthanasia as a way to solve any problems with unwanted or undesirable people. By the time the Nazi party came to power the idea to preserve the valuable people, and rid the world of undesirable people was already common among society. Hitler was very open about his hatred for the Jewish people, but was careful to proceed slowly while introducing the hatred to fellow members of the Third Reich and other German citizens. It started with limits for the Jewish people, such as careers they could have, places they could go, assets they could have or obtain etc… Then the introduction of the Jewish Ghetto’s took place, to separate the unwanted people from the non-Jewish Germans. Several families would be forced to share a small space to live in. From there it escalated to Jews being sent from Ghetto’s to labor camps where they would do hard labor for the Third Reich, so that they would not have to sacrifice the work of the “real” German people. Labor camps turned into death camps where Jews were killed by the tens of thousands daily, and for a long time, even those citizens living near these camps